No Driver's License, No Job [TheAtlantic.com]

In some places though with mass transit, folk don't own vehicles, or the insurance, or the license because it isn't necessary, and hence not a sign of responsibility. An ID would suffice in such situations.

No it is not!!!!  

Exactly!!!!  The 1993 federal law which focuses on permanency is used to justify these practices.  There is a need to review the impact of this law, just as it is  becoming clearer that the  Crime Bill has created the mass incarceration of poor and minority people. 

This clarification of relevant factors might have helped the planners of the first "War on Poverty", which was merely considered [by some] to be "A painfully timid assault on the consequences [rather than the causes] of human misery." I'm not sure Ryan's proposal is much better.

The social policy of removing children from their cultural/home environment to a "better" environment is called social engineering.  It's a great way to "assimilate" a minority culture into the dominant culture as well as serve the needs of the dominant culture for population redistribution.  Classic example is the explicit policy of the US to remove Native American children from their families and indeed their tribes to be raised in Anglo boarding schools or adopted by Anglo families.  We know the generational trauma this policy caused and the effects continue to manifest to this day in the form of higher rates of suicide, etc among this population. Social engineering is arrogant because the "experts" purport to know what is better for a child than the child's family and community and because it ignores the importance of attachment and instead values materialism over attachment.  Safety is of course the first consideration when working with children.  Safety issues and risk factors to children cannot be ignored. But when you start to place children in homes based on one home being "better" because of higher education level of parents, or the parents being married versus a single parent, or living in a nicer neighborhood, or being straight versus gay, then you are engaging in social engineering and not honoring the best interests of the child based on attachment and respecting the expertise of the family.

I am in  the process of getting the actual numbers. I have asked my state elected official to request some of this data. 

I have been working with clients over the last ten years and my statements have been affirmed by public defenders and staff  who have left because of these issues.  Oddly enough they see themselves as doing the right thing. They see poverty and distressed communities as ACES for which there is no return.  They do not think of the fact that there are many families who live in the same environments and provide loving safe homes for their children.  Instead of helping families learn how to handle stress, they see permanency as being away from these communities.  They are also reluctant to have family members take over unless they meet almost impossible standards without resources.  They believe that the trauma they cause by taking these children away from families and their communities is justified in the long run. It is  amazing since one of the critical principles of trauma informed care is not to re-traumatize!!!

Patricia, do you have numbers for that? I'd like to know more. I'd also postulate that if they say they're using ACEs and trauma-informed principles to do what you're saying, then they're not really using them.

Jane,

Thanks You.  I agree with your comments.  Unfortunately, the Bureau of Child Welfare is using ACES and Trauma Informed Principles to remove predominately poor African American Children and placing them in adoptive homes in largely white suburban communities. I do not believe that everyone who works in the system are racist or uncaring, but the impact is no less devastating to the families and the community.  

Thanks for your astute and informative comment, Patricia.

Some people are adding more types of ACEs to ACE surveys, including systems trauma. E.g., Dr. Nadine Burke Harris has added six questions to the ACE screening for her clients and one of those is involvement with the foster care system. I think we could add involvement with zero-tolerance schools, the juvenile justice system, the welfare system, the criminal justice system, the "corrections" system, and even much of our healthcare system to the list. That doesn't mean that cold-hearted people work in these systems -- to the contrary, I think a lot of good-hearted people work in these systems. But the systems are designed on outdated thinking (pre-ACEs), they're structurally racist, and are organized to support the status quo (and even make things worse) rather than actually solve problems. So, unfortunately, the systems also traumatize those warm-hearted, well-meaning, committed people, and turn them into jaded, over-stressed people who've had all the empathy beaten out of them.

However, there are enough examples of organizations that are implementing trauma-informed and resilience-building practices based on ACEs science that have demonstrated remarkable success at actually solving problems, helping families heal, helping students succeed, etc., so that there's a great deal of hope.

As a person who was born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin I really relate to this discussion.  Growing up in a town where my father who migrated from Mississippi when he got out to the Navy after WWII was able to pick and chose what job he wanted.  He  had a GED and my mother only finished 8th grade, but they were able to provide  a stable and loving home even in the mist of the severe segregation that remains to day.  Over 74% of African American men could find living wage jobs.  Now, over 65% of African American men of working age are without jobs.  The poverty rates for Milwaukee are among the highest in the nation.

Milwaukee does not have a regional transit system.  It was reported that by the next ten years one of the four suburbs that surround Milwaukee will have a net 74,000 jobs and Milwaukee will have a net 300.  It has been estimated that over 50% of black males do not have a valid drivers license.  There many be training going on but it has not been realized in job attainment. It is not doubt that the lack of reliable transportation is a key factor.

Mass incarceration is the highest in the nation for African American men.  There was a " secret shopper" study that occurred about 10 years ago now in which about 400 black and while men went looking for jobs with the same resumes.  The study revealed that it was easier for a White man with a felony to get a job than a black man with no criminal record. 

The studies that have recently come out that discuss the link between increases incarceration and increased children placed in out of home placement is very evident in Milwaukee.  

When people say what is wrong with the people in Milwaukee with all of the violence, these are some of the reasons.  These factors do not negate responsibility for personal behavior, but it places a better lens in which to understand.